Sorry, Todd, I have no quantitative information. I can say with complete
confidence, though, that what Jensen is saying is CERTAINLY true at Lehigh
University.
Ted Morgan
TODD JONES wrote:
> Hello list members
>
> I thought that Robert Jensen's post concering "leftist professors" was
> interesting.
>
> And I was wondering if anyone on the list actualy had any "hard data" on
> the subject.
>
> The right wing often raves about the crushing dominance of "tenured
> radicals" while the left often claims, as Jensen does that
> "The fact, however, is that the typical American university
> is dominated by centrist to moderately conservative faculty members and
> administrators, with steady movement to the right in the past two
> decades."
>
> I've always been curious about this. Does anyone on the list have any info
> on what the actual numbers are?
>
> Best,
>
> Todd Jones
>
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, radman wrote:
>
> > Published on Saturday, March 24, 2001
> >
> > Horowitz and the Myth of the Radical University
> >
> > by Robert Jensen
> >
> > Thanks to conservative author David Horowitz's recent lecture at the
> > University of Texas, I have new hope for radical political organizing
> > on campus.
> >
> > Many of us on the faculty with left/progressive values have felt
> > rather isolated on what we all thought was a conservative campus. But
> > it turns out that all this time we've been working in a nest of
> > left-wing radicals who have over-run the place, leaving conservatives
> > cowering in silence.
> >
> > At least that's Horowitz's analysis. University faculties around the
> > country, including UT, are "skewed far to the left" as a result of
> > conservative professors being "systematically purged," according to
> > Horowitz, a one-time leftist turned right-winger.
> >
> > My colleagues and I are hoping Horowitz will help us find where all
> > these radicals are hiding; more company would be nice.
> >
> > In the decade I've been at UT, a handful of faculty members have been
> > willing to get involved in left/progressive causes. Events and
> > actions that address racism, sexism, militarism or corporate
> > domination usually involve the same small group of committed folks.
> >
> > If the "left-wingers run the universities" claim were coming only
> > from Horowitz, it wouldn't be cause for much concern. The political
> > analysis that comes out of his "Center for the Study of Popular
> > Culture" is so consistently loopy that he's hard to take seriously.
> >
> > But this assertion about left-wing dominance of universities is
> > repeated so often throughout the culture that it has become widely
> > accepted. The fact, however, is that the typical American university
> > is dominated by centrist to moderately conservative faculty members
> > and administrators, with steady movement to the right in the past two
> > decades.
> >
> > At UT, for example, there are some professors -- mostly scattered
> > throughout the liberal arts and social sciences -- who might
> > reasonably be called left or progressive, a few even radical. But in
> > my experience the majority of faculty members run from liberal
> > Democrats to conservative Republicans.
> >
> > In some places on campus -- the well-funded McCombs School for
> > Business comes to mind -- it would be silly to argue that the
> > ideology of professors is skewed even mildly to the left; they are
> > bastions of conservatism where no critique of the basic nature of
> > corporate capitalism is voiced.
> >
> > More and more, universities are influenced by the wealthy donors and
> > corporations that exercise increasing power as public funding for
> > higher education shrinks. Professors, no matter what the nature of
> > their research, are being told that attracting outside funding is
> > increasingly a requirement for tenure and promotion.
> >
> > That means that people doing work that critiques the fundamental
> > assumptions of powerful institutions in this culture (one reasonable
> > definition of a "leftist") are becoming even more marginalized. Not
> > "systematically purged," as happened during the McCarthy era, but
> > squeezed out by a system that values conformity and subordination to
> > power more than deep critique.
> >
> > I am not so naive as to expect institutions to go out of their way to
> > foster dissent; institutions tend to reproduce the relationships of
> > power in the wider society, and universities are no different.
> >
> > But we should put away the fantasy that radicals are running the show
> > and begin to ask seriously whether our society cares about
> > maintaining universities as a place for independent critical inquiry.
> >
> > This is not a plea for sympathy for poor lonely radicals on campus.
> > As a tenured professor, I enjoy a freedom to pursue my intellectual
> > interests that is available virtually nowhere else in the culture,
> > and I'm grateful for that freedom. But I worry that graduate students
> > and younger colleagues coming up through the ranks won't enjoy that
> > same freedom.
> >
> > That should be of concern not just to aspiring academics but to a
> > society that wants to call itself democratic. If higher education is
> > not a place for critical self-reflection on the powerful, we're all
> > in trouble.
> > -----------------
> > Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the
> > University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
> > rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu. Other writings are available online at
> > http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/freelance.htm.
> >
-- Ted Morgan Department of Political Science Lehigh University Maginnes Hall #9 Bethlehem, PA 18015 Phone: (610) 758-3345 Fax: (610) 758-6554
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